The Cup of Trembling
by Qismat Qami
Summary: AU. LxLight, dark!fic. "As I was going up the stair I saw a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish he’d stay away."
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** AU, character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

**Characters (main):** L, Light

**Characters (secondary):** Rem, Misa

**Chapter Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

**Summary:** "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

**A/N:** Be forewarned—this is a peculiar child of a peculiar brain. Whether the reader may find anything worthy of approbation, the author cannot say—except that zie hopes the reader will show enough human respect and dignity to refrain from sacrificing zir upon the alter of the reader's indignation. Thank you most kindly for your time and for, if you may be so inclined, a memento of your visit in the form of a review. The author is, as always, the humble and pitiable servant of your entertainment.

**A/N 2:** Solely for the apparatus of this fiction the age difference between the two is ten years, unlike the manga's seven year gap. Other adjustments and changes have been made as well. Only a ghost of the canon clings to this naked endeavor. Additionally, there will be **no** actual chan/shota, though a discourse on it may arise. If/when L and Light become physically intimate, Light will be above the age of consent in Japan.

* * *

:Put Out the Light:

* * *

"Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.  
Put out the light, and then—Put out the light?" (V, ii, 6)

* * *

L Lawliet knows Kira to be full of childish conceit; he didn't know the creature to be a child in years as well.

Seven years old and far too young, too beautiful for the sins piled up before his small, delicate feet, Yagami Light stares at him with mockingly guileless brown eyes, unconcerned by the Browning Hi-Power pointed at the smooth skin between his brows. Kira, this child sitting demurely at his desk in empty classroom? L's heart rebels. Kira, the most prolific mass murder of this era—possibly ever—caught between bars of shadow and sunlight, transported above the fading shouts of his peers as they pelt out to the freedom of a summer's afternoon. His mind quails. Kira, seven years old and unconscious of the guilt of several hundred deaths, murderer of murders.

L, with seventeen years hanging off his own slouched shoulders, experiences the sensation of some great ideal slowly crumbling within himself. A little death. A slowly hemorrhaging wound. His hands remain steady; the gun never wavers from that forehead yet unwrinkled by experience, by life. All evidence points to the boy.

"How?"

Why?

Six months of hunting, six months of cat-and-mouse, and all that comes to this, this horrifying moment. The boy's slender, cream-pale fingers stroke across the shiny red flap of his school-issue backpack, already full with his books and supplies in preparation for going home. This is an evil that no jury, no judge will ever see in court. All that evidence and human, adult blindness will declare it impossible: no seven-year-old is capable of doing such things.

The safety has been off and the hammer cocked since L watched the harried looking teacher leave. One bullet. Bang. The end of a killer's reign in a place that smells of paste and chalk and aging wood.

The boy's honey-dark eyes—eyes that reflect the twinned image of the Browning's matte gleam—shift briefly to peer over his left shoulder and then slide back to him. The child smiles gently, compassionately.

"It was fun. Maybe we can play again sometime, L-niichan."

Then the small frame shudders violently, thin limbs seizing in rigid arrest. One choked, aborted breath, and Yagami Light, seven years old, tumbles sideways off his seat.

* * *

:To the Dark Tower Came:

* * *

"My first thought was, he lied in every word,  
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye  
Askance to watch the working of his lie  
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford  
Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored  
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby" (I, 1-6).

* * *

It is the first time the Shinigami Rem has ever experienced the sensation of being cold. Or perhaps this is fear? A first, then, as well.

"Why are neechan's eyes all puffy?" Small, slender fingers tipped with diamond claws gently trace the air over the sleeping human's cheek, a mere breath away from vulnerable, all-too-fragile flesh. A sudden vision of crimson whispers in her mind. "Is it because of me, Rem-san?"

Honey-dark, slit-pupil eyes peer up at her through a tidy fall of bronze bangs. The creature's wickedly gentle mouth purses in thought. A shinigami like her, but not at all like her. She must choose her words carefully.

The young woman, pulled deep beneath the waters of somnolence, sighs and turns in her luxurious bed, long blonde hair feathering about her in a golden halo. The other raises his hand just enough to keep from slicing open the woman's face. The space where Rem supposes her heart would be clenches with anxiety. She never liked the child, Yagami Light, in life, and in death he is…

Horrifyingly beautiful and so pure it almost hurts to look upon him.

"She cries herself to sleep more often than not," Rem answers. "Your death is a source of great sorrow for her."

You were like the little brother she lost reborn, but what was she to you, Yagami Light?

"She still has possession, doesn't she?"

"Yes…" What are you planning? What more will you put her through?

The child-shinigami hops off the bed, leaving not a trace of his presence upon the twisted bedding, and glides silently to Rem's side. Maybe this sensation is helplessness?

"I'm not dead, though. Not entirely." He tilts his head, a flash of pearly fangs, and lets the wan moonlight catch in silver phosphorescence upon the pattern of scales that march up his slender neck and down beneath the collar of his peculiar outfit—a combination of what appears to be thin chains and frayed ribbons of the material humans call satin.

What was the King thinking in letting such a thing exist?

"Take care of her, Rem-san."

He turns from her and from the young woman who sleeps with grief and wakes with a brittle pretense of careless joy. Rem cannot help it: her voice reaches out and clutches at his attention.

"What do you intend?"

He turns his head to cast her a look over his shoulder. For a moment she swears she can see something ancient and wholly alien staring at her from behind the screen of his eyes.

"Take care of Misa-neechan," he repeats, and it sounds more like an order.

* * *

:Shadow Walk:

* * *

"As I was going up the stair

I saw a man who wasn't there

He wasn't there again today

I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

* * *

Of its own volition his hand continues to move towards the stack of reports and the object, which had not been there minutes before, resting atop the precarious pile. Glistening and dark, like a rectangular pool of black ink, the slim volume pulls upon a cord of dread buried deep within his lungs—and yet his hand advances, reaches out, fingertips yearning for it, desiring it, while his brain sends out flares of distress. Molasses-time bears down upon him, sucking out the air in his lungs. He touches it, the notebook.

Expecting dampness, but finding none.

Dry and cool to the touch, no different from any other notebook, but still…

Something, something in L Lawliet shifts, twists and drops into his stomach. A hard ingot of… of… Fear, perhaps? Horror? And why would such an innocuous _thing_ evoke a response like that? He has never been prone to irrationality, not even during the semi-credulous years of adolescence. Yet, here he is at eighteen, full of gnawing apprehension over a singularly peculiar sheaf of bound paper—paper, of all things!—that Wammy most likely added to the stack while L was immersed in the electronic case files. Yes, that is what reason tries to nudge into the forefront of his brain. After all, notebooks don't manifest from nothing. Spontaneous generation was disproved centuries ago.

And yet…

His fingertips press against the unmarred cover and begin to stroke it, reveling in the velvety texture of the hand-pressed paper. The glow of the monitors wavers over the surface of the volume, rippling, lambent, and yet that should not be possible. Tactile sensation wars with visual. His eyes tell him that it should be wet, slick—it is not "like" ink, it is ink—and his fingers tell him it is no more, no less than heavy paper. Which sense has been deceived? Both? Neither?

And why can he not stop touching the thing? Why does it seem like if he is only patient, he will feel the gentle throb of a reciprocal heartbeat within the bound pages?

Then he catches it, a scent that sends his mind tumbling back through a sudden torrent of memories: paste, chalk and aging wood. And there, underlying those subtly mingling odors, a faint trace of tamarind and raw milk.

A small body, a murderer in the sweet flesh of a child, so… so very still in his arms. Slender limbs limp, beginning to cool. Silent lungs. Silent heart. Dead at the age of seven from a heart attack—not the Browning Hi-Power that has not been touched since. Kira. Kira. Kira.

How many religions across the Earth have deified children? Perhaps they are the only ones worthy of being Gods.

Tamarind and raw milk. Stronger now. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle. His fingers continue their languid, hungry caress of the notebook. Tamarind and raw milk. Kira. Kira. Kira. Yagami Light.

He does not pull his gaze away from the slim volume, even as a small hand curls about his throat.

* * *

Chapter End

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings:** AU, implied character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

**Characters (main):** L, Light

**Characters (secondary):** Matsuda

**Chapter Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

**Summary:** "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

**A/N:** All verb tense changes are deliberate and much thought over—perhaps more than is healthy for one person. Furthermore, as you may have begun to suspect, each chapter is really a compilation of drabbles/ficlets of varying lengths. The author's publishing process is to first post individual drabbles/ficlets to zir Livejournal and to then, when zie has collected enough pieces whose word totals combined equal or exceed one-thousand, finally post a group of drabbles/ficlets as a single chapter at this site. Lately, zie has been able to find time at work to write at least one a day; so it is quite possible, depending on word counts for individual endeavors, for there to be a chapter posted every three or four days. However, do not hold zir to this.

* * *

:Drink Deep:

* * *

"As round as an apple,

As deep as a cup,

All the king's horses

Can't pull it up."

* * *

A small, cool hand curving about his throat. The delicate _prick-prick-prick_ of claws. Such a gently waiting death.

Human language dies and rots on his tongue, and all he tastes is metal. The tea and cake before him are as blood. The horsehair is about to snap and the blade will fall upon his neck, fatal. Yet the drum within his chest continues its tattoo, quicker now, quicker. Ambivalent life swells in his veins, pounds beneath the fragile skin of his wrists. His lungs draw breath.

Tamarind and raw milk. A nebulous figure caught within the glare of the monitor. _Prick-prick-prick._

Cold sweat gathers in his armpits, slicks the furrow of his spine. A chill enters the fingertips of the hand possessed by the queer notebook. The other clenches to blood-fled paleness.

"L Lawliet." Soft words spoken with a child's lilt. Pressure upon his throat. Resist until severance of life, let the liquid flow of his heart escape? Or follow, obey, yield? "Niichan."

He is curiosity's cat, that feckless feline. Yes, he will call it curiosity, attribute it to his rapaciously inquisitive nature, to his need to comprehend, to _know_. This is not resignation to the ineluctable unknown.

The chair back creaks as he allows his weight to push it back, legs unfolding from their customary crouch upon the seat to brace against the ground. Back and back and back, the little hand guides him, urges him, until the chair locks. And all the while his own hand has refused to relinquish the notebook; it brings the thing with the rest of his body to rest across his thighs. Glistening. Rippling.

Seconds slither about the clock. He recites the periodic table, once, twice. _Prick-prick-prick_.

He raises his gaze from the slim volume, lets his head fall back, hair fanning away from his face. He looks.

Tamarind and raw milk. An existence that should not be.

Language restored, violently metallic: "Kira."

* * *

:The Calling Voice:

* * *

"Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take."

* * *

The computers go into standby mode, screens dark—a moment to catch the porcelain pale visage, the kempt layers of cinnamon-caramel hair, the honey-dark eyes, the mouth a graveyard for smiles. Then everything is sucked into the shadow's maw. A small voice in the back of his brain picks this time to mention that, perhaps, the blackout curtains may not have been the best idea.

But that face, those features… The scent that fills his nose… The little hand and its razor claws tenderly locked about his throat…

"I can feel your heartbeat. It's so fast. Why?" Soft breath feathers across his brow. Another hand closes over his uselessly staring eyes, claw-points delicately indenting the vulnerable flesh next to his right eye. A little bit of pressure and—_pop_! But, no, they just rest there, a threat. The taste of pennies washes across the back of his tongue. His pulse leaps against the creature's fingers. The notebook in his hand remains obdurately cool, as if impervious to the feverish heat of his flesh.

L Lawliet is an infant, born anew through this strangling, nameless emotion ripening in his lungs, language an impossible cipher. Only one word crawls out of his mouth. Only one word fills his brain with white-static silence.

"Kira."

"Kira?" the creature echoes, thoughtful, horrifyingly young. Yagami Light, seven years old, one year dead, Kira. "But you killed him, didn't you? Oh, no, you didn't. L Lawliet didn't get to. He wasn't fast enough. He failed. Yet Kira is still gone."

A gentle, childish sigh flows across his forehead. "Do you miss Kira? I could be that again, but you'd never be able to catch me, no matter how fast you are this time. We couldn't play together, either. You're the only one I've ever had fun with.

"I missed you, L-niichan."

Then it is not the darkness of vision that swarms over him, yanks at his brain and pulls it down. Unconsciousness is a singularly precious blessing.

* * *

:Poison Kept:

* * *

"There's a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no,  
And a sigh for I can't bear it!  
O what can be done, shall we stay or run?  
O cut the sweet apple and share it!" (V, 17-20)

* * *

"Matsuda-san, please wake up."

Groggily, head still full of amorphous anxieties, mouth sour with sleep, Matsuda Touta opens his eyes to the false dawn light of too-early-in-the-morning-to-be-up. Automatically his gaze tracks to the glowing numbers of his digital clock: Three-Forty-Three AM. Then, brain starting up like an old car in winter, he focuses in on what awoke him.

If he is awake…

"Raito-kun?" He raises a hand to rub at the crust of sleep gluing his eyelashes together—a scrap of lined paper falls to the bed.

If he is awake, then…

He repeats the name, eyes locked upon the apparition sitting cross-legged on the other side of the bed. The child looks the last time he saw him alive—almost. Something strange, something just a bit unfamiliar. Maybe it's in the pale, delicate translucency of his skin, like antique Chinese porcelain, and the nearly imperceptible markings of what may be… scales? Or the eyes, dark and serious as before, but something not quite right about the pupils, something off. Or the clothes the child wears, not so much clothing as strips of ragged satin stitched together with silver chains.

Or the small hands crossed in his lap and their wickedly glittering nails, polished pieces of diamond.

If he is awake, then this creature is…

"Are you a ghost?"

The child cocks his head and gives him a familiar look, the one that says, "You're not very bright sometimes." Touta received that look often in the past, when the child was still alive, when he would sneak away from his minders and come to the police station looking for his father; and always, always, Touta found himself, as the youngest rookie, having to look after the boy while his father was contacted. Not that he'd ever really minded because the child, little Yagami Light, always had a way of asking questions about the cases he was assisting the more senior detectives with that made everything come together. So many "Aha!" moments would spring from even the simplest question, and if he didn't get the connection Light had, obviously, already made then Touta would receive that look.

It's only been a year since the captain's son was sitting on his lap, going through the case notes on his laptop and mentoring him, Matsuda Touta, a man more than twice his age, on how to solve crimes. A humbling experience, but one he still remembers fondly.

"A… a dream then?"

"If you like," Light answers, voice still sweetly young. "I don't mind being one, for now."

There, beneath the acrid mustiness of the AC unit working away to combat the summer's sticky heat, a known scent—an exotic spice and something milky and animal. His late grandma, a woman who was superstitious without being religious, never mentioned anything about vengeful—or non-vengeful—ghosts having a smell. Do dreams have smell? He usually doesn't recall much about his own. In fact, the "usual" is for him to wake up as soon as he has an inkling that he might be in a dream. Yet, from where else but his own subconscious would such a Light spring forth?

This must be a conflation of his own recollection of the child and the harshly whispered confession the chief gave him after he resigned from the force. The world's greatest detective, L, believed the little boy, seven years old, to be Kira, and that same child died, not of complications arising from an allergic reaction, but because he was Kira; and Touta always pictured Kira, the kind of person who could kill hundreds of criminals and elude L, as a particularly crafty sort of demon.

Now, here, sitting on the other side of his bed—the side that hasn't had company in more months than the young man cares to count—is a demonic child. It makes his brain ache, dream or not. Even if that L character believes the boy to be Kira, even if the detective has managed to convince the captain—former captain—and the rest of the special task force of that, Touta, a mere rookie still, can't quite believe that. How could a seven-year-old be a serial killer, especially one that can kill without leaving behind a single microscopic piece of evidence? Not possible, right?

"Are you Kira?" What do you say subconscious? What do you think of all this?

"Kira is gone, isn't he?" the figment replies.

"So you're not?"

"I've been lonely," the child says, slipping past Touta's query with small shrug. Even his dream doesn't know the answer, apparently. "Are you on my side, Matsuda-san? No matter what? You like me, don't you? You're my friend, right?"

Looking so young, so lost and small, reaching out with one little hand, claws gleaming, Light leans forward. "You won't let anyone hurt me, will you?"

* * *

Chapter End

* * *

**Afterword:** The author would like to purloin a brief moment of the reader's time to express her unbounded gratitude and reverence for all those exquisitely kind individuals who took a moment out of their busy lives to leave a review for this unworthy piece. To Hime, MiaoShou, Cabot, t-me, Empress of Misfits, Zira Angel, ShadowedDarkness, and ебало, thank you so much for your undeserved generosity. Very, very special thanks goes out to WithABunny for being the chapter's first review. Again, to all, thank you from the bottom of the author's timid heart!


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings:** AU, implied character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

**Characters (main):** L, Light

**Characters (secondary):** Rem, Misa

**Chapter Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

**Summary:** "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

**A/N:** All verb tense changes are deliberate and much thought over—perhaps more than is healthy for one person. As for the criminally late update… let the words "visiting relatives" suffice.

* * *

:King of Kings:

* * *

"And on the pedestal these words appear:  
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:  
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'  
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,  
The lone and level sands stretch far away" (9-14).

* * *

A palsied trembling has taken possession of his extremities since he regained consciousness. Even his traitorous left hand, still clutching that damned notebook, shakes and shivers, and causes the pages of the note to rustle. Not a dream then. Not some horrible waking nightmare. Real. Impossible, but real.

In the light of day, the notebook is not so much black ink as a pool of hart's blood so deep and dark as to be almost black. In the illumination of the overhead lights, L huddles in himself and ignores the trays of saccharine delicacies Wammy leaves outside his closed and locked door. The blackout curtains have been pulled from their reinforced hangers, the all lights are on, it's day outside, and yet there is not enough light to chase out cold terror slicking the back of his neck, breeding in his constricted lungs.

Kira. Kira.

If he opens his mouth, only one word will come. All language reduced to a single, simple expression of his absolute and irrational horror. That little hand, so cool and calm. Those deadly claws. The gentle, young voice. Tamarind and raw milk. _Niichan_.

Not possible. Not possible.

He knows Yagami Light to be dead. He was there when it happened, perhaps even precipitated it. Maybe that's the curse of killing as Kira did? To die of a heart attack when caught? Then what of L? Is he to be cursed for doing the catching?

There he is again, as he is so many times when the cases cannot quash that noisome ache of despair, in that classroom full of instruments and tools to educate impressionable, malleable young minds. There he is, heart beating, beating, beating out the immolating tattoo of his rage and betrayal—and why, why did he feel, still feels, betrayed? There the child is, seven years old, sweetly innocent, unconscious of wrongdoing, of sin, Yagami Light and Kira blended into deceptive perfection—and no child should ever have the right to be so beautiful and pure. Paste and chalk and aging wood. The lilting voices of the child's classmates pouring in with the afternoon sunlight through the wide open windows. Browning Hi-Power heavy in his hand.

_"Maybe we can play again, L-niichan."_

Fuck.

* * *

:Doll Cage:

* * *

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,  
How does your garden grow?  
With cockle-shells, and silver bells,  
And pretty maids all in a row."

* * *

"Rem-san."

Pinprick pain crackles below her skin as every muscle tenses. She hoped that _he_ would stay away, that the first visit would suffice. Apparently not, though.

As if pulled from the living shadows of Rem's unobtrusive ceiling corner of the soundstage, the shinigami-child hovers by her side on wings of crystal shards and razor wire and watches with vague interest as Misa performs her role as peppy high school heroine.

"She hasn't used it since I asked her not to, right?" Yagami Light asks, and Rem wonders if the look on his porcelain-pale face can be classified in human terms as affection. Yagami Light has always been a double-edged sword wrapped in child-softness, leaving everyone bleeding and enraptured in his wake.

"She has not."

Down below the director calls an end to the scene; assistants swarm the actors as they step off the set. Evincing signs of idle curiosity, the child-creature drifts lower and Rem, obliged to follow out of some morbid urge to _know_, keeps to his side. Their descent takes them closer and closer to the ignorant humans.

"Wouldn't it be funny to scatter pieces of our notebooks on them and watch them all panic when they catch sight of us?"

"The rules—"

He cuts her sharp words off with a sharper glance. "Yes, yes. Still, it would be something to laugh at. Teach them to fear again."

The word escapes her on an airless breath: "Kira…"

"I've heard that a lot recently. How strange." Tracing the full curve of his bottom lip with one gleaming claw, he tosses her a mildly consternated look—and then he smiles, wide and childishly delighted, eyes glowing with honey flames. "You should get Misa-neechan a present, something that would make her really happy. She'd like that, wouldn't she?"

Below, Misa catches sight of Rem and surreptitiously sends the hovering shinigami a reproachful pout: Rem is supposed to stay out of sight while the young woman works.

"You know where my family keeps my ashes, don't you, Rem-san? You should give them to her."

* * *

:Crooked:

* * *

"There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,  
And found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,  
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,  
And they all lived together in a little crooked house."

* * *

_The child gives him one long, slow look from head to foot and then back again, honey-dark eyes measuring his worth behind a deceptive affectation of innocent curiosity. A sweetly wicked smile curls in the corners of his pink mouth. "I revise my hypothesis: ghouls do exist."_

L Lawliet jerks out of reverie, neck prickling with a sudden wash of cold sweat. The scent—tamarind and raw milk—is back. Without conscious directive his right hand slides beneath the pillow under his head and closes about the cool grip of that infamous Browning HP. Then, in one fluid motion, he twists up into a crouch, right arm describing a perfect arc as it follows the flow of his body. The creature gazes back at him, nonplussed by the muzzle pressed between his eyes, caught in the process of crawling towards L across the expanse of the king-sized bed.

"Are you going to shoot me, niichan?"

There, _that_ smile, that little wicked grin, the one he remembers from their first meeting, when L allowed—what was the emotion he felt then? Curiosity? Something… else?—some peculiar urge to pull him from his self-imposed divorce from human contact and seek out a child belonging to one of the men in his carefully selected investigation team: a certified genius at the age of seven. For the first time he gave serious consideration to Wammy's suggestion of looking into the possibility of an heir or heirs—just in case—and, even, began to construct the apparatus of the discourse he would use to convince the child's parents to allow him to take the boy back with him after the Kira investigation reached a conclusion.

Except…

"Kira." His finger twitches. The creature smiles wider.

"Are you going to hurt me?"

Oh, this is why he feels betrayed.

Bang. Glass shattering. The gun recoils. The child's head snaps back. A moment of stillness, of violence-drenched silence. Point blank.

The shudders return, crawling up and downs his limbs, rattling his teeth in their sockets and the gun in his numb right hand. The child collapses, folding in on himself, and then, gravity having taken hold, tumbles off the side off the bed.

The scene from the classroom a year ago returns, the image of it superimposed over the commercial austerity of his hotel room, wavering in and out of focus. Which is the _now_ attendant upon the action? Classroom or hotel room?

Quick, quick, the beat of his heart in his chest, in the hand that will not forfeit possession of the notebook, in the hand that, as his thoughts whirl down in spiral of white static, releases the gun. Acrid bile squirms up his esophagus, films the back of his tongue. He scrambles across the slick cotton sheets because he needs, needs, needs to _know_. Is this the horror of a brilliant mind unraveling or something else, a greater horror?

What is real?

How is the web of reality spun? Is it through a consensus of physical experience, of spiritual or secular thought? Is one person's reality the same as the next, or can an individual pick and choose, discarding what is found to be undesirable or detrimental? What if something, someone, exists that should not? What reality could contain that?

L peers over the side, anxiety wriggling in the pit of his stomach and every tensed muscle. There, the creature-child-Yagami Light-Kira, spider web of cracks radiating from a dent between his closed eyes. It's as if his skin is tempered glass that has been struck by a blunt object. A porcelain doll dropped upon a hardwood floor. Such a tidy sprawl of coltish limbs. So still. So silent. So exquisitely, horribly beautiful.

But there all the same.

Did he really expect the child to vanish in a puff of smoke? Or fade away like any proper hallucination?

He reaches out with that hand that still throbs with the memory of the recoil—and he is back in the classroom, touching the swiftly cooling skin, feeling the last lingering traces of life seep away into the summer afternoon. His lungs give a convulsive heave as his fingertips trace over the child's downy right cheek, just barely brushing the delicate fan of cinnamon-gold lashes.

"Ki—Raito," he says, voice thick and cracking. He presses the length of his pinky finger against the hinge of the boy's well-formed mouth. Five sharp claws dig into in his wrist.

"Are you satisfied now, niichan?" the creature asks against the digit he keeps trapped against his lips.

* * *

Chapter End

* * *

**Afterword:** The poor creature that is the author of this small little thing begs a moment to unfold the pages of gratitude writ deeply into zir unworthy heart: to SonokoTao, ShadowedDarkness, WithABunny, PervyMonk, MiaoShou, Elia Black-cat, Little Blossom, Dipilidopa, Amber Jack, thank you deeply and profoundly for the blessing of your kindness and your wonderful support. Particular thanks goes to **ебало** for being the first review of the second chapter! 


	4. Chapter 4

**Warnings:** AU, implied character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

**Characters (main):** L, Light

**Characters (secondary):** Misa

**Chapter Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

**Summary:** "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

**A/N:** Update excuse this time… World of Warcraft… *sigh* Furthermore, slight changes have been made regarding the information about the first two criminals Light killed in the anime/manga for the purpose of fulfilling a specific role in the apparatus of this piece of fiction. The author hopes to receive forgiveness for this potential indiscretion.

* * *

::All the World::

* * *

"If all the world were apple pie,  
And all the sea were ink,  
And all the trees were bread and cheese,  
What would we have to drink?"

* * *

Honey-dark eyes open, and for a moment, a second between frantic heartbeats, L swears he can see the limit of his own existence—its beginning and its ineluctable end—but it is only a flash, the tiniest glimmer of prescience, that pricks him at the farthest edge of conscious awareness before falling away from his mental grasp.

"You had to do it," Light says, pale pink lips barely moving against the side of L's trapped finger. "You needed to, right?"

And his diamond claws cut in, just a little, just enough to be felt, for the threat of punctured flesh and ruptured veins to spill down L's arm in a dizzying rush of adrenaline.

"It's okay. I understand." The creature-child smiles ever so slightly. The web of cracks spread across his forehead begins to fill in, healing in a way that is not quite healing but more of singular reversal of events, a temporal _un_-doing. "For future reference, though, human weapons won't work. That's why it doesn't matter how fast you are." Then Light's grin stretches, warps, and the amusement lighting his eyes is anything but human. "You broke the window, niichan."

L looks up, away from the horrible, enchanting eyes of the creature: the heavy blackout drapes shift with a draft that was not there before. Yes, in the light pouring from every available lamp in the suite, he can just make out the singed, partially melted hole and a shards of—supposedly—bulletproof glass upon the taupe carpet. In the very back of his mind, that hysterical yet detached portion, the affronted thought, "The hotel manager lied," bubbles up. He could laugh or scream or beat creature-child's face in—oh, wait, no, he can't: fists belong to the realm of human weapons. He can't do anything. Just like—just like—

The creature releases his wrist and then, before L can react, reaches up with those chain-and-black-clothed arms and twines them about his neck. One impossibly strong jerk and the man falls over the side of the low bed, expecting to crush the beautiful child, but landing roughly on the thick carpet instead: a moment of disorientation, of drowning in the scent of tamarind and raw milk, then synthetic fibers scraping against his cheek, air startled to stillness in his lungs. His left hand still clutches the notebook; it hadn't even responded to his body's natural instinct to brace for the impact.

Where did—? How did—?

He levers himself up with his right hand, but a pair of bony knees jabs in the back, right below his shoulder blades, and rides him back down to the floor. L manages to turn his head to the side before the child holds it immobile with one small hand. He strains his eyes to catch a glimpse of his tormentor, a creature that cannot be and yet is. Where is science now? What kingdom of human reason could ever account for this _thing_?

His breaths heave out of his chest, racing his maddened pulse. This can't be real. It's—It's ludicrous. Impossible. It must be sleep paralysis—only, no, ghosts don't exist so that isn't the reason. Then it must be—must be… He claws through the carefully categorized caches of information he keeps stored in his mind. A reason, a logical, scientific reason exists. Yagami Light is dead; therefore this is all in his…

No, no, he can't quite bring himself to that precipice, because if this is all in his head, if all of this is the result of a critical failure in his own mental processes, then there is nothing left for him to structure the archive of his own "I am" around. The concept of "I am" necessarily becomes its own antithesis. L is undone, Laertes's shroud in the flesh.

"I can crush your face," Light whispers, affecting the careless lilt of his less exceptional age-mates—and, yes, L has always suspected the innocence of childhood to be more of a game to young Light than an actual state of existence, even during their first meeting. "So you should be good and listen."

It is then that L realizes that he has been groaning—a low, keening, _animal_ sort of sound—all this time.

* * *

::Happiness::

* * *

"A pleasurable treat  
Simple and Sweet  
As of blood to make us remember"

* * *

_Small, warm fingers touch her cheek and she can't help but lean into the gentle caress._

_"You shouldn't use it, neechan."_

_"But I want to help you. I want to be useful. I can be your Eyes." Her hands tremble violently as they clutch at the child's narrow shoulders._

_Fingertips slide down to rest as light as butterflies across her painted bottom lip. "Then be my Eyes, but leave the writing to me. Misa-neechan is too pure to be a killer."_

_The little boy withdraws his hand and places his fingertips upon his own mouth for a moment, eyes falling half-mast._

_A small smear of red._

_An indirect kiss._

_"Promise me you won't use it anymore."_

This is the second time her shinigami, her Rem, has given her a gift: the first had been the Death Note. Lovingly Amane Misa runs her fingers over the polished surface of the small black urn. This is her Light. Her precious little brother reborn and then taken away again.

Taken away by the detective known as L.

An attractive frown beetles the skin between her brows. If she had met the man, she would have written his name down as soon as she saw it floating above his head in a phantom dance. Then he wouldn't have… Then her Light wouldn't have…

It would have been worth breaking her promise to him. Light hadn't wanted her to kill, hadn't wanted her to meet L, hadn't wanted her to _kill_ L. But if it meant that the little boy would be the one to live…

She would take the great detective's life and take the blame for being Kira. Anything, she would do anything for her precious Light. Anything to see that winsome, wicked smile, to feel those small arms twine about her neck, and listen to the gentle voice whispering plans for a righteous world in warm puffs of breath against her ear.

Misa clutches the cold urn tightly to her chest, letting it settle in the valley between her breasts, as fresh tears gather behind her lashes and threaten to overwhelm her waterproof mascara.

"Thank you, Rem," she whispers to the silently watching apparition in the corner of her dressing room.

* * *

::Thistles::

* * *

"Cut thistles in May,  
They'll grow in a day;  
Cut them in June,  
That is too soon;  
Cut them in July,  
Then they will die."

* * *

Small, cool body pressed up tight against his side. Small, slender arms wrapped playfully about his neck. Diamond tipped claws scratching tenderly across his scalp.

Eyes squeezed closed, L shudders—a convulsive contraction and release of overdrawn muscles—as the child breathes all his moribund secrets into his unwilling ear. The first murder, the last murder and all those hundreds of deaths in between are poured into him, poured with loving delicacy, filling him up to bursting. To violence.

Everything he couldn't explain one year ago, everything he couldn't quite pin down, ripples over him on the current of the boy's breathless words, in the eager quivering of his slight form. L's hand clutches at the notebook.

The Notebook.

For all the evidence, mostly circumstantial, he gathered up and pieced together, he had never been able to discover the _how_ of it. Never could explain how the child killed, how he could overcome a hardened adult and cause the heart to fatally fail without leaving behind a scrap of evidence, or even being in the same country, only that he did—made the impossible possible. Made the world crawl in fear, deaf, dumb and blind, at his young feet.

"The bad people had to go away," the child-creature whispers, affecting a coquettish lisp. "Isn't that a kind of Justice?"

He jerks within the boy's deceptively tender hold as that last word pierces his ear and travels the electric pathways to his brain. His mind spins back, unreeling crisp black strips of memory film, to his uninflected proclamation to a room of case-weary, life-worn investigators. Then everything speeds forwards again, winding back up, to the moment the first suspicion flared in the back of his mind.

Otoharada Kurou. 42. Unemployed. No indications of any heart-related health issues. Died of a heart attack shortly after killing a teacher and taking a classroom full of elementary school children hostage. Light had been one of those hostages.

Shibuimaru Takuo. 26. Unemployed. Perished in a traffic accident after being acquitted of the charge of sexual assault and battery on the grounds of insufficient evidence. His alleged victim was a girl the Yagamis routinely hired to look after Light.

From there the webbed connection of deaths spiral out, with little Light standing with impish conceit at the epicenter. L had started with the furthest threads of association and slowly, methodically worked his way down, down into the growing horror that the bright-eyed child with too many lies dancing on his pink tongue was the source of such madness. Littered about him were the names of those who had harmed people in his daily life. Those had been the first to go. The last… strangers whose guilt the media plastered on TV screens and Kira supporters posted about on the internet.

"If you write their names down, they'll die. All of them will die," Light sighs, curling his small fingers into L's unruly black hair and tugging idly. "You can make them go away forever. It's like erasing a wrong answer. Easy. You should try it." The child stills, not even the involuntary twitch of pretend life mars the sudden doll-like cessation of movement. Seconds crawl by on broken knees, uselessly dragging this aching moment into the future.

The metallic sourness of his fear mixes with the exotic, animal smell of the mercurial creature clinging to him.

"You will try it, won't you? This will be a new game, just you and me this time—you and me and the lives of everyone in the world on the scales." Cold lips dance over the shell of his right ear and suddenly the child is bursting with effervescent excitement, trembling and restless. "One week, niichan, one week to write down a name or they'll die—those children you keep at that place. If you write your own name, they'll die and so will everyone you've ever had contact with and so many more. That will be the start of our game."

The arms tighten around his neck; the claws dig into the fragile skin of his scalp. "I really have missed playing with you."

Then the weight is gone, the cold body is gone and another chill seeps in to replace it.

"Write a name and I'll be yours for the rest of your life."

* * *

Chapter End

* * *

**Afterword**: Many special thanks to all of those who have gifted the author with a review in the long interim between updates: **Amber Jack, Black-Dranzer-1119, Hime, Elia Black-cat, Roach Patrol, MiaoShou, ShadowedDarkness, Wildhawk, Kawaii Tenshi no Shi, Tierfal, RichelleShalark, Tierfal, RandomTopic, FlyingWyvern, sayuri2023, ChaosReigns, judikickshiney, Viskii, maureenjade, Shooboosha, KittyMarks, shiai10, lokiwolf**. The author would also like to express zir deepest gratitude towards **WithABunny** for being the first reviewer for Chapter 3!


	5. Chapter 5

**Warnings:** AU, implied character death, angst, spoilers for L's name, dark!fic, future slash/yaoi

**Characters (main):** L, Light

**Characters (secondary):** Ryuk, Matsuda

**Chapter Rating:** PG-13

**Disclaimer:** Owned by Ohba Tsugumi, Obata Takeshi, et al

**Summary:** "As I was going up the stair / I saw a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I _wish_, he'd stay away."

**A/N:** All verb tense changes are deliberate and much thought over—perhaps more than is healthy for one person.

* * *

::Birds of a Feather::

* * *

"Birds of a feather flock together,  
And so will pigs and swine;  
Rats and mice will have their choice,  
And so will I have mine."

* * *

A man threatens a woman and small child with a battered kitchen knife. An angry snarl stretches his mouth to its limits as he shouts invectives.

"What about him? Can you kill him?"

"You want me to turn to sand or something, kid?"

A delicate period of silence. "Of course not."

Ryuk chortles dryly and watches the scene play out in the human world with Light perched upon his shoulder, small feet idly kicking against his clavicle, little fingers twined in his coarse black hair to maintain balance. He likes the kid, has from the moment he first confronted him with the existence of shinigami. The child didn't scream or cry or do anything silly or annoying like that—just stared at him owlishly for a few moments before launching into an intense interrogation about everything Ryuk knew concerning the usage and limitations of the Death Note.

Far more entertaining than if he had bawled his eyes out in terror.

Though, come to think of it, seeing the kid's scared face or teary face might not be too bad…

He snorts quietly to himself. Not likely such a thing will ever happen. The kid has a warped sense of humor, had one even before Ryuk killed him and the King brought him back.

What a brilliant stroke of luck to get this particular child, who knew just how much of his plans to unfold to keep the shinigami interested, but not enough to allow him to predict the outcome, when he "accidentally" dropped a Notebook in the human world. And the apples, can't forget those beautiful, deliciously sinful delights of juicy goodness. A line of drool threatens slip from the corner of his mouth. Mmm, apples. Fresh apples. Apple pie. Apple bunnies. Apple strudel. Applesauce. Apple—

"How about that one?"

The hole in the floor of their world displays a different human, male again, sitting lethargically in some dark, close-walled space. The name and lifespan swim lazily above his head.

"Eh, I probably could. Wouldn't give me all that much life. He doesn't have too many years left."

The shinigami-child hums tonelessly in acknowledgement.

"You should just write some names down yourself, kid. Then your Eyes would finally mature."

"L-niichan has my Book right now," Light reminds him with a sharp little smile.

"You've at least written a few yourself before you dropped it, right?"

Light laughs brightly, like a sudden explosion of glittering crystal shards. "That would have been _cheating_. This game won't be any fun unless I give him my existence."

Ryuk feels his level of interest rise. His ever-present leer stretches wider. Yeah, he likes the kid, likes Light. He made a deviously fascinating human, made a better shinigami as a human than the real shinigami do as, well, themselves. And, now, as a shinigami himself…

This, whatever this is or will become under Light's exquisite manipulations, is going to be good. This is going to keep him entertained for human decades.

In his head he once again pats himself on the back for bribing the King with his precious stash of apples—mmm, apples—to pull Light's soul out of Mu before it completely unraveled. So what if something else might have snuck in along with it, or if the King willfully added something in the reshaping of it—nobody knows how to shake of up the worlds of the living and the dead quite like this kid.

"Once he writes a name, everything will begin—and he will write a name," Light says, voice sweet with honeyed anticipation and darkly rich with worldly knowledge.

"You really like that human, dontcha, Raito?"

"Of course." No further explanation is forthcoming, and isn't that just like Light? Handing out tidbits to titillate, but never letting the whole of the matter be revealed until the very, very end.

"You really like apples, don't you, Ryuk?"

* * *

::Plague Dancer::

* * *

"Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies  
A Pocket full of Posies  
"A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"  
We all fall Down!"

* * *

"You shouldn't fall asleep here."

The _clack-clack-clack_ of the wheels upon the track and the anxious creak of the cars as the train takes a turn in tunnel catch upon the gently reproving voice and jerk him out of the sudden wave of weariness weighing down his eyelids. Rubbing a gathering of sleep-grit from the corner of his right eye Matsuda Touta looks around, mouth split upon a raw yawn.

It's the last run of the night before the stations shut down until the early morning rush, so he's pretty much alone in the car. The only other passenger, a middle age business man with graying temples dozing fitfully in the seat farthest from him, doesn't seem to be the owner of the voice that shook him awake. Maybe he's just hearing things in that liminial moment between unconsciousness and dreaming.

Then the sticky summer air filling the train car with all the odors of those who have passed through today—their soaps and shampoos, colognes and perfumes, and, above all, their sweat—shifts and a familiar scent plays with his senses: milky and animal, sweet and exotically spicy. A film of sweat slicks his palms and his grip upon his briefcase tightens until the color flees to paleness.

Curled up on the seat, small knees pressed against his chest, is the bewitchingly unsettling apparition of Yagami Light. "You shouldn't let your guard down like that, Matsuda-san, even if you are tired," the child says with a trace of smile.

"R-Raito-kun—wha—?"

The child's hand closes over his mouth before he can get much further into his incoherent shout of surprise. "Stop being an idiot," Light's expression quite clearly says as his honey-dark eyes track to the business man shifting restlessly at the other end of the car and then back to Touta.

"Your stop is next," the apparition murmurs, slowly pulling his small hand away, diamond-glitter claws lightly tracing across the detective's shock-parted lips. "Did you want to miss it?"

This must a dream, the man thinks with just a hint of sleepy hysteria. Another dream. But why? Why of Light and why now?

He continues to wonder, dazed and slightly frightened, as the automated voice system announces his stop and a small, cold, delicately—deceptively—fragile hand slips into his. Silently he follows this child who cannot be off the train, across the platform and up the stairs to the streets of his neighborhood. As he watches the top of the young head crowned in silky cinnamon-caramel hair bob along beside him, feels the small hand trustingly gripping his own, he finds himself possessed by a curious desire to own, to protect and keep. Even if this is a dream.

And he remembers the first time he saw this child as something other than a glossy photo attached to a victim's profile folder.

Remembers the crazed man holding a kitchen knife against the abducted child's tender young throat. Remembers the calm, unaffected look in Light's eyes as the bitter blade bit into his skin and freed a small rill of crimson. And when the man had turned the knife on the cops closing around him, Touta had taken the shot.

One bullet had ended two weeks of frantically searching for the chief's missing son and two hours of a tense standoff. Before the man's shout of surprise could even stop bouncing around the unfinished warehouse, the other officers swarmed him, separating him from the little boy he so desperately struggled to retain hold of.

And there stood little Light, impassive and flawless as the man screamed for him beneath the squirming pile of officers and paramedics wrapped him an emergency blanket and urged him over to where his frantic father waited. Their eyes had met as the child had crossed the floor to his father and the little boy had given him a faint, approving smile, just the slightest quirk of pale, pink lips. It was like getting a promotion and ten Medals of Commendation.

He had wanted to protect the Yagami child from that moment on. Fiercely. Irrationally. Had wanted to lock the child up and away from the filthy world and make it so he would only experience beauty and kindness.

Then he had listened to the abductor's confession, his breathless, teary words, and felt disgusted with himself—because that's what that man had wanted, too. Among other things left unspoken and sealed away in the case's file. The Yagami child was a minor after all.

But both of them had failed in their own way because Yagami Light is dead now. Dead and buried, and the sweet creature clasping his hand is just a figment of his overtaxed brain.

"Did you know that shinigami like apples?" the child asks, effortlessly breaking into his roiling, uneasy thoughts.

A line of cold sweat rises along the ridges of his spine. Those words…

"W-What?"

"Will you buy me some, Matsuda-san?" Light looks up through the orderly fringe of cinnamon-caramel hair framing his brow, eye dark like rich honey, and smiles guilelessly. "Apples. I like them."

* * *

Chapter End

* * *

**Afterword**: All the author wishes to take an all-too short moment to convey zir deepest gratitude towards those especially kind individuals who took the time to honor zir with their regards: Hime, lokiwolf, rpln, fairlyironic, silly, Shivera, AddictedToReading. Most profound and heartfelt thanks goes out to Zira Angel for being the first reviewer of Chapter 4!


End file.
